Update: Dad speaks out after woman bites cop on Canada Day

By Staff Metro

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A Winnipeg dad said a pushy driver who allegedly bit a police officer following the fireworks show at The Forks ruined his family’s Canada Day.

The man, who asked not to be named to protect the children, said he was part of a group of 15 family and friends, including seven kids ranging from three-months to eight years old, that spent the day at various Canada Day activities.

“We had a lot of fun and that was a rather bad way to end the day,” he said in an interview after seeing the story based on the police’s account on Metro’s website.

“We took the children home quickly, they were all scared and freaked out.”

According to police, as thousands of people were leaving The Forks at 11:30 p.m., a woman driving a Pontiac Sunfire collided with a young child and though the child was not injured, the father got angry, at which time the woman drove her car into him multiple times trying to push him out of the way.

The man said he was at the end of his group crossing at the stop sign near the skate park pulling a wagon with a sleeping four-year-old girl when the he saw the car “just centimetres” away and the driver yelling at them to get out of the way.

“She kept going until she was touching my leg and pushing me back and she moved the wagon,” said the man.

What ensued was utter chaos, with yelling and even punches thrown: the woman punched him in the face, and then the man’s girlfriend jumped in and punched the woman.

“The crowd was going nuts, they were cheering us on,” he said.

That’s when police arrived and instructed the woman to pull over. She refused, however, due to the heavy pedestrian traffic, she had to stop anyway.

Police said officers asked the woman to turn off the ignition for safety, which she again refused to do, and when an officer reached in to turn the ignition off, the woman bit the officer, causing an injury. The woman was then taken out of the car and arrested.

Police said another woman in the car tried to stop the officers and was also arrested.

A 20 year-old woman is charged with assaulting a peace officer and, under the Highway Traffic Act, failing to stop and remain stopped when signaled by a peace officer and failing to remain at the scene of an accident and exchange particulars.

A 17 year-old girl is charged with obstructing and resisting a peace officer.